Pay As You Sail – Transas Offers Free Charts For Voyage Planning

Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) engineroom simulator developed by Transas for the Royal New Zealand Navy engineering school .

One of the frustrations of planning voyages to new ports is obtaining charts. To reduce costs and also to avoid having to correct old charts, shipping companies often don’t purchase the needed charts until just before departing to a new port and this limits the navigator’s ability to prepare for the voyage.

In recent years, mariners have turned to Google Earth and unauthorized charting programs on their laptop to obtain the waypoints needed to calculate basic distances and fuel usage figures. but wouldn’t it be simpler and safer to ‘borrow’ actual charts for initial voyage planning? Transas thinks so and recently announced a new ‘Pay As You Sail’ chart solution for Electronic Navigational Charts. The announcement comes after succesful sea trials and verification by Det Norske Veritas (DNV).

Traditionally, the navigator has to select and purchase charts prior to each voyage using what is commonly called pre-licensing method. With Transas PAYS solution, the vessel will have a license and access to install, view, and pre-plan using official (S)ENC’s where the necessary PAYS permissions have been obtained without additional cost.

What’s unique with Transas “Pay As You Sail” solution is that recording and reporting of charts used is done with extraction from Transas Navi-Sailor 4000 ECDIS logbook. Vessels only pay for charts actually used for navigation monitoring. In other words, only charts that have been displayed on the screen together with ships position or generated navigational alarms. In principle, this is “best scale charts only,” not all charts and scale bands under the keel.

Transas ‘Pay As You Sail' Schematic

Transas PAYS is a service for accessing chart licenses and corrections online together with the ECDIS. ‘Pay As You Sail’ communicates via Transas Gateway firewall for licensing, corrections and sending chart reports. Transas Gateway works via a secure online internet connection from the vessel’s Navi-Sailor 4000 ECDIS to the Transas Chart Server. It also allows remote support and maintenance on the Transas ECDIS which increases safety onboard.

“With the official Transas Admiralty Data Service (TADS) SENC-service developed in cooperation with the UKHO, Transas ‘Pay As You Sail’ gives the vessel access to the most cost and time efficient (S)ENC service on the market and the best (S)ENC coverage available for navigation and planning. Transas ‘Pay As You Sail’ service complies with UKHO requirements. Besides the vessel’s internet connection, no extra communication equipment or tracking service is needed.”

About John Konrad

Captain John Konrad is the founder and CEO of gCaptain and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. John is a USCG licensed Master of Unlimited Tonnage, has sailed a variety of ships from ports around the world and is a distinguished alumni of SUNY Maritime College.